Should you lose weight without eating health?

September 3, 2007 7:32 PM

Does what you eat really matter for weight loss, or is it simply a numbers game?

A few months ago I paid a visit to my doctor. I told him I wanted to lose weight and asked him for advice on doing so. He told me to "just eat less" and explained that weight loss is simple math: consider how much I typically eat now, and consume less. The drop in calories will translate to lost weight over time. He also told me to sleep less - an extra one or two waking hours will burn more calories than sleeping.

I pressed for a little more - "But what foods are better than others? Don't certain foods have different effects on metabolism?" etc etc. He dismissed this and told me to eat whatever I feel like. Whether it's steak, pasta or McDonalds, just eat less.

I would disregard this advice if it came from someone on the street, but regardless of the fact that this guy is a jerk (this visit, like most, lasted about 3 minutes), he is a doctor. Is my doctor off his rocker for telling me to lose weight by eating one Quarter Pounder instead of two, or are all the specialists, personal trainers and mens' interest magazines driving us crazy with their talk of maximizing the efficiency of your inner furnace by carefully selecting specific foods?

posted by tomorama to health & fitness (47 comments total)

I suppose the premise is that if your current diet is maintaining your weight at a certain level then eating less of the same things would cause you to eventually lose weight.

I am sure there are foods and things you can do to maximize this process but it requires a lot more change and diligence from the person using the process. I bet that kind of thing is more apt to cause a person to lapse then anything else.
posted by mmascolino at 7:45 PM on September 3, 2007

It worked for me. I have lost 60 pounds since January, playing it as a numbers game. Read all the labels, know the amount of calories you are putting in your mouth. Get on the machines at the gym that tell you how much you are burning.

Now I have pretty much not touched a fast food burger since then, as a burger plus fries can give you more calories than you can make up for. But at Taco Bell, 3 tacos<5 00 calories. 2 slices of pizza is around 600 (ymmv) where as the 4 or 5 i used to eat would be over 1200. know what you are eating. read labels, look up the nutritional guides for restaurants the web. if a bag of chips says a serving is a dozen chips, count them out and put up the bag. get a good set of measuring cups and spoons for the house and use them. br>
Maybe it would have been more efficient for me to eat a very specific diet, but I wouldn't have been able to stay on that sort of diet. Eat less, exercise more. It actually works.
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 7:47 PM on September 3, 2007

That's the basics. Eat fewer calories than you burn, and you'll lose weight. So you can lose weight by eating less, exercising more, or both.

All the other advice comes down to:

1) Foods that are actually better for you. (If reduce your caloric intake, and eat nothing but Big Macs and Fries, you'll lose weight, but you might no feel so great).

2) Advice on ways to have satisfying, filling meals while keeping calorie intake low. (You can eat a ton of brocolli or carrots, and get very few calories. But a couple of dollops of mayonaise can put you over your target calorie goal real fast)

3) Claims that the right foods can somehow alter the basic equation - by changing your metabolism, affecting how you digest, etc. Traditionally, I think, most of those claims are really suspect. But from what I gather there's some evidence that the low-carb diets do have some useful effect this way...

And yeah - the articles in magazines about the latest nutritional breakthroughs are generally bullshit. It's hard to sell magazines with stories like "nutritionists continue to recommend gradual decrease in calories consumed as means to weight loss."
posted by ManInSuit at 7:49 PM on September 3, 2007

It is a pure numbers game. Eat less (and/or exercise more) and you'll lose weight. However, where most people go wrong is that in eating less of the same food you ate before you get, you know, hungry. So it's hard to maintain that. If you can eat less calories but more volume of food (food that has less calories but is more filling), you have a great chance to succeed because you won't get hungry and then slip off the diet. The added bonus is that, often, these high volume/low calorie foods are often good for you in other ways - more fiber or more vitamins, etc.
posted by marylynn at 7:53 PM on September 3, 2007

He is exactly correct. I've got two blog posts where I talk about how I lost 35 pounds doing exactly that (eating less). Of course there is more to it. If you cut all the veggies out of your diet, you'll be a lot hungrier but won't lost much weight over time. It's all about cutting down the number of calories you consume.

Type of food matters in that you want to try to eat foods that are as filling as your existing diet but pack less calories. Some people call this energy density and you want to minimize it in your diet. Oatmeal has a very low energy density in that it's extremely filling and doesn't have many calories. A candy bar is just the opposite.

So while there is a lot more to it, your doctor is correct. All things being equal, if you just ate less, you would lose weight.
posted by AaRdVarK at 7:53 PM on September 3, 2007

What he says is basically true but ignores a lot of physiology and psychology. Complex carbs and simple carbs release their goodies into your bloodstream very differently, which makes a difference to when and how you feel hungry. Exercise makes a lot of difference. Protein is important. And so on. The best thing you can do is educate yourself about nutrition, exercise, and, yes, play the numbers game. But if you take care of the other business the numbers game will become a hell of a lot easier to win (to the point you don't have to think about it at all).
posted by unSane at 7:53 PM on September 3, 2007 [1 favorite]

There's a reasonable amount of evidence now that cutting down on sleep will actually impede your ability to lose weight, by maintaining high circulating ghrelin levels. (Ghrelin drives you to eat) and thus reducing leptin levels. So I don't know about that bit of his advice. (here's a WebMD summary I found - I've read a bunch of the primary literature though, because leptin is one of the peptides I work with in my research).
posted by gaspode at 7:54 PM on September 3, 2007

If by eat less, he means eat fewer calories, then yes, that's how it works. For a more complete explanation, see The Hacker's Diet.

Some foods will fill you up for fewer calories, and pack in more nutrition, but if all you're concerned with is losing weight, then no, there's no special trick except eat fewer calories than you burn.
posted by tejolote at 7:54 PM on September 3, 2007

It is a numbers game. Specifically, 3500 calories equals a pound of body weight. Burn 3500 calories, or cut 3500 calories out of your weekly/monthly/whatever diet, and you will lose a pound.

That said, there are foods that fill you up and don't make you hungry in three hours (protein, fats) and there are foods that soon make you crave more food (sugar, carbs.) Choose your calories wisely.
posted by CunningLinguist at 7:55 PM on September 3, 2007

If you've ever been in a physics or engineering class, it does work like that. Eat less, exercise more is a mantra for a lot of people. I've found I can tick off 5 lbs in about a week if I really watch how much I eat of anything. That means no seconds ever, smaller portions of what you normally eat, no desserts, and not eating past 8pm. The problem with keeping weight off is having to always think about these self-limitations. I've long given up on making this a central priority to worry about 24 hours a day, so I sort of maintain the same slight overweightness.
posted by mathowie at 7:55 PM on September 3, 2007

My personal experience has been that it's a numbers game. I took off 20 lbs over the past year or so doing nothing more than getting regular excerise (a little more than I had been getting) and watching what I ate (a little less thn I had been eating. I didn't diet and I didn't really cut anything out, I just ate rich food far less often, ate at home more, had to eat more protein-ish stuff just to support my exercise habit and got on the scale every day to keep track.

There are lots of schemes and Dumbo's-magic-feather ways of tracking this sort of stuff, but in most cases, if you're not super disciplined your doctor's advice sounds more or less right, though I've never heard the "be awake for an extra hour" part of it.
posted by jessamyn at 7:56 PM on September 3, 2007

He is a doctor, and probably went to a medical school where they spent one day or even a half day on nutrition. The words from his mouth are not golden bits of gospel. See a nutritionist if you want medical advice on how to lose weight.

That being said, eat less and exercise is the basic principle of weight loss. It does take a lot of willpower to eat less with the same foods in your diet, especially if you've got lots of them around the house. The basic idea of eating different foods is that you can eat foods that are more filling and have less calories than the foods you currently eat. Finding new foods that you like will also help you keep the weight off without feeling like you are starving yourself.
posted by yohko at 7:56 PM on September 3, 2007

Also, I second gaspode--don't short yourself on sleep. It will cause you to overeat in the long run, because it stresses your body. Stress causes your body to produce cortisol, which monkeys with your insulin levels, causing weight gain. Get the sleep and go for a walk later instead.
posted by tejolote at 7:59 PM on September 3, 2007

I read an interesting article about how this equation is just not as simple as it sounds. The article is here.

This article is not about just eating less, though. It's about exercise, so it's only tangential to your question. But it has some interesting observations that do relate to your question, like, "When you diet without exercising, you lose both muscle and fat, which is counterproductive because muscle loss significantly lowers your basic metabolic rate, the number of calories your body uses at rest." So, just eating less will cause you to stop losing weight, or at least to slow down the rate, and at the same time to gain faster once you increase the number of calories you consume.
posted by Capri at 8:00 PM on September 3, 2007

Last winter I read an e-book by the guy who founded Autodesk, The Hacker's Diet. It's more or less based on the same principle -- eat less than you burn -- but formalizes it with some moderately geeky math and excel spreadsheets to track your progress. I didn't adopt it outright but I've been kind of following the idea and I've definitely lost a few pounds. IANAD, that book was not written by a doctor, but anecdotal evidence seems to say it works assuming you're not stupidly unhealthy about what you (don't) eat.
posted by Alterscape at 8:03 PM on September 3, 2007

Cut out the sodas and "fruit" drinks and drink water instead. It's amazing how many calories can sneak in your diet though those two paths.

By cutting out a soda a day and not making it up, you could keep off 10 lbs a year give or take.

Subtle life style changes can help also. Taking the stairs, walking more, changing your snacking habits, etc.. can be the difference between gaining, maintaining or losing.
posted by bottlebrushtree at 8:07 PM on September 3, 2007

Your doctor is probably reacting to people who are expecting some complex miracle plan - eat this magic thing, avoid that magic thing and you'll lose weight.

I've seen so many people around me trying to lose weight. The people on programs can never seem to do it (Atkins, Weight Watchers etc) and I'm not sure why. The people I have seen lose weight are the ones who just say "Ok. That's it. I'm cutting down on my rich dinners, eating a more sensible lunch and, most importantly, start doing things like walking a lot more." A few months later, assuming they really meant it, they are the ones I see succeed.

My theory, for what its worth, is that a lot of programs have you blindly rely on someone or something other than yourself. Also, many of them are so rigid as to invite violation. And once you violate its as if its all over.

The eat-less diet simply says, "Big deal. So you ate a whole pizza. Just try not to do that too often." Its not about self-denial but about moderation.
posted by vacapinta at 8:09 PM on September 3, 2007 [2 favorites]

I would hugely discount the sleep thing. Lack of sleep can lead to weight gain, not weight loss. It can mess up your metabolism and make you hungrier during the day. While I kind of get what your doctor is saying about the food thing, his advice in this respect kind of makes me doubt him overall.

Personally, sleep is a massive factor for me with weight loss, but I know I'm the extreme, if I get a lot of sleep I have so little appetite that I have to make myself eat something by 4 or 5 or I get a really bad headache, and when I don't get enough sleep (which is often, explaining that 10 extra pounds I need to lose) I eat everything in sight.
posted by whoaali at 8:18 PM on September 3, 2007

You can lose weight by eating less, but remember, that's not the best thing to do for your body. Eating whole foods, fruits, veggies, lean meats, whole grains, etc. is better for your body. Eating McD's isn't good for your heart, arteries, etc. If you eat a Big Mac at 700 calories (or whatever it is), you'll be doing more damage to your body than eating, say, 700 calories of vegetables and chicken breast. So yeah, you reduce your intake and the calorie deficit will cause you to lose weight, but weight loss alone doesn't necessarily make you healthy.
posted by HotPatatta at 8:20 PM on September 3, 2007

Physiologically, it is a numbers game. Psychologically, it is not. If you can ignore the psychological stuff and pay attention only to the numbers in order to lose weight, more power to you.

Exercising while you lose weight is worth doing not because of muscle gain or loss, but because of brain chemicals and how exercising makes you less hungry and happier, so it's easier to make choices with your head. Exercise is also important because the people who have lost a significant amount of weight and kept it off are the people who exercise regularly. Those people also tend to eat breakfast and weigh themselves frequently. There's a registry for people who've lost weight. I won't vouch for their awesomeness, but I have seen their studies on Medline, so I assume there's some peer review going on.

If you eat less calories than you burn, you will lose weight. But doctors know very little about losing weight. Nutritionists know very little about losing weight. For most people, it is a complex issue. On the other hand, I believe that a lot of people build up a whole pile of excuses that amount to choosing not to lose weight*, and that having to eat the "right" things can be one of those excuses. So be careful, and examine your goal. Do you want to aim for overall health? Or do you want to drop some pounds? Those are not mutually exclusive, but the answer to that question will tell you how to go forward.

*I think it's better to know yourself and make that choice honestly rather than go for years saying "I want to lose weight" while constantly setting up ways not to.
posted by hought20 at 8:22 PM on September 3, 2007

My weight loss program involves eating the same as normal - or even slightly more. But I add 45 minutes of cardiovascual exercise 5-7 days a week. Yay, weight loss.
posted by Justinian at 8:22 PM on September 3, 2007

I have a nutritionist, who put me a 2,000 calorie (55% carb, 35% protein and the rest fat) a day diet, based on the exchange system. The exchange system works on the idea that calories are calories and it doesn't matter where they come from, as long you keep under your daily goal.

The problem, though, is that the quarter pounder is bad for you. Without cheese it consumes almost 1/4 of a 2,000 calorie diet, and that's JUST the quarter pounder. Are you having fries with that? cheese? a coke too? Then you're probably at 1,000 calories and that's one meal.

But too much of those calories are coming from fat, you've ingested a ton of sodium and sugar and you're probably gonna be hungry again real soon.

So yeah, cutting back on calories is the basic idea, but you have sense of balance on where the calories are coming from. You wanna eat stuff that leaves you full for a while and gives the body fuel to do what you need to do throughout the day.

Having one quarter pounder as opposed to two is a good start, but more needs to be done. Exercise helps lot.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:24 PM on September 3, 2007

Eating less calories = weight loss, regardless of the quality of food you are getting.

If you start calorie counting, you are soon going to realise that you are going to want to eat your calories in the bulkiest form you can get. Why eat a burger and fries when you could cram yourself full of actually good food.

I don't like the sleep less idea though, unless you are sleeping more than 8 hours a day. Walk more. Get some good audio books and walk, or ride, or jog or whatever.

I have lost a lot of weight this year, and I don't strictly count calories, but I maintain an awareness of them. Get a good grasp of what a `serving' actually is. Go crazy with food occasionally, it's good for you. Don't eat sugar, and don't snack. You will get used to it sooner than you might think.
posted by tomble at 8:25 PM on September 3, 2007

Check out the latest Scientific American for some very cool information and solid advice (which generally echoes the commonsense advice given by my fellow Mefites). It's an entire issue dedicated to food and obesity. There's stuff you won't be interested in (well, maybe you'd like to know how economic development affects obesity rates) but a lot of very topical info as well.
posted by dondiego87 at 8:31 PM on September 3, 2007

Often diets that are about specific foods end up really just being eat less diets too. Good example is the paleo diet, which I lost 20 lbs on. Yes, the foods are nutritonally dense, but they are damn expensive. I couldn't afford to eat more than 1500 calories a day. Also, besides nuts, paleo foods are the opposite of convenience foods...I'd call them inconvenience foods. This kept me out of most restaurants and vending machines.

It's easy to just say "eat less," but usually you have to do tweaking for your individual tastes, habits, and goals. The paleo diet did more for me than just help me lose weight, it helped my stomach problems too.

Studies show that food quantity and quality matter. Refined carbs screw up your blood sugar, etc. Do a search of pubmed and see what comes up regarding what you eat.

That said, I don't keep to the diet strictly anymore. I now do the Micheal Pollan Diet: "eat food [real food, not McCrap], not too much, mostly plants." It's pretty simple: a moderate amount of diverse nutritious plant foods + occasional treats.
posted by melissam at 8:33 PM on September 3, 2007

Almost everyone here is wrong. It does matter what food you eat, and both your doctor and Metafilter are oversimplifying things.

You absolutely, positively need a minimum level of protein in order to maintain your lean body mass. If you cut that protein out in place of carbohydrate or fat-rich foods, you'll lose lean body mass instead of fat, making it harder to burn fat. Eventually, like an anorexic, your heart will stop. The RDA is .36g per pound. Most people consider that a bit low, but it'll keep you alive. The reason the vegans are all about tofu and soy is because it's a good protein source, they need to pay extra special attention to it.

You also need a bit of fat. This is a reasonably small amount -- a couple of ounces a day -- but without it, you start having trouble with vitamin absorption.

You also need a certain amount of sodium and potassium in your diet. Without it, you'll dehydrate and cramp.

Now, after you fulfill your basic protein, fat and mineral requirements, then it's a pure numbers game.

But wait! You have to know which numbers.

The numbers to keep track of, of course, are calories. It's very easy to eat less by volume and still gain weight. A substantial steak will often have fewer calories than a few oreos. A giant bowl of broccoli will have fewer still. You can eat more in volume than you might usually eat and still lose weight, and you can get fat eating a relatively small amount of food if you choose very rich foods.

So, you have to know what foods will provide the minimum protein requirements, just enough fats, and enough volume that you won't go crazy from eating "too little" -- or, even too much!

The medical profession worked out years ago how to calculate what folks truly need, and then work out a system to divvy up what kinds of foods folks should eat on a daily basis to stay healthy. It's called the Exchange Diet, is commonly "prescribed" to diabetics (and is generally considered to be both effective and healthy), and can be explained to you (and have a meal plan worked up) by any nutritionist worth their salt. Nobody makes money off of it, and it provides more structure and control than "eat less."
posted by I EAT TAPAS at 8:42 PM on September 3, 2007 [3 favorites]

Well, Arthur Agatston is also a doctor and he seems to think it matters quite a bit what foods you eat. Admittedly, the South Beach Diet is about cardio health as well as losing weight, but it works for both. While it is technically correct to say strictly that reducing calories will lead to weight loss, being careful about what you eat will greatly facilitate appetite control and other things that make it easier to lose weight.

Another way to think about it: as you learn about what types of foods are most calorie-dense, you will probably also learn about these foods' effects on your blood chemistry, and this knowledge will inevitably affect what foods you ultimately choose to eat instead of merely playing "the numbers game."
posted by rkent at 8:46 PM on September 3, 2007

Also, keep a food diary, so you can keep track of what you're eating. Pencil and paper is fine, but computer apps might be better. Fitday is free and includes many food in it's database. Calorie King's Nutrition and Exercise Manager was way more helpful, thought it cost $45, but it's money well spent, IMO, plus it's available for Mac and PC. It helps keep track of not only your calories, but your fat, carb and protein intake and exercise, so you can really see it's not just calories, but where you calories are coming from.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:53 PM on September 3, 2007

I think if you eat less, but don't exercise, you may just lower your metabolism, which won't help. SO make sure to include exercise.
posted by delmoi at 9:06 PM on September 3, 2007

"weight loss is simple math: consider how much I typically eat now, and consume less."

While this is true, it's not really weight loss that you want, it's fat loss. Otherwise you could easily accomplish your goal by lopping off an appendage or two. When your body senses that it is receiving fewer calories than it is burning, it starts breaking down fat and muscle tissue to make up the deficit. Losing muscle is bad for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that muscle tissue burns calories. Many dieters fall into the trap of yo-yo dieting losing a quantity of fat and muscle, gaining the weight back in fat and wind up in worse shape than when they began.

What you want is to lose weight while minimizing the loss of muscle tissue. For this, your dietary choice is important, as is exercise to help compensate for muscle loss. Carbohydrate is muscle-sparing, as is protein to a lesser extent. Most American diets are already overloaded with fat and protein, so an easy way to diet is to simply start watching and cutting back on your fat calories. Try to keep fat calories around 25% of your total caloric intake. Protein should be around %30 and the rest carbs. Choosing more natural foods will provide you with more nutrients, and the added fiber also serves to make you feel fuller.
posted by Manjusri at 10:00 PM on September 3, 2007

The Shangri-La Diet is based on the hypothesis that certain foods do make you fatter than others -- by making you hungrier, leading you to consume more calories than you otherwise would. The effect is claimed to be particularly strong with highly flavored, calorie-dense foods that taste exactly the same every time you eat them -- anything that comes in a box or from a quick service restaurant, basically, assuming you have had it more than a couple times. So it may help to stay away from prepared foods even if they are within your calorie range, and to keep up the variety.

Of course, you could also try the full-on Shangri-La plan, which requires consuming small amounts of bland calories each day (sugar water or light oil) to counteract this effect.
posted by kindall at 10:08 PM on September 3, 2007

As others here have said, losing weight is simple math, but you shouldn't want to just lose weight -- you want to remain active and lose fat and also find sustainable habits. In my experience cutting down on carbohydrates while exercising worked, although I only wanted to lose about 5 pounds, which I did quite easily. Also your doctor sounds like he resents having to talk to you and gave you mean advice on purpose.
posted by creasy boy at 12:26 AM on September 4, 2007

Many people above have suggested that eating less will lead to weight loss but this isn't wholly true.

Eating fewer calories than you currently do may just lead to you not gaining weight as fast as you currently are (or to staying at the same level). To lose weight you need to eat fewer calories per day than your body uses up in a day.

www.physicsdiet.com is an excellent site for information on dieting (such as calculating your Adjusted Metabolic Rate - the number of calories your body burns in a day) and great for keeping track of your weight.

I've found the rolling average aspect of the weight chart particularly helpful as it helps to show that you are actually losing weight even though your scales show that you've gained and lost pounds in a nearly random fashion (since a large proportion of your weight is water and your water content varies much quicker than your fat content).
posted by koshmar at 1:20 AM on September 4, 2007

Proponents of particular low carbohydrate diets suggest that, if you are willing to stick to a very low carbohydrate regimen, that you can achieve greater weight loss than is possible with caloric limitation and exercise only, because of ketosis. Controversy persists about whether such weight loss is sustainable in the long term, as many people who use low carbohydrate diets for weight loss, regain that weight if they return to normal diets.
posted by paulsc at 1:56 AM on September 4, 2007

Conventional wisdom states that 3500 calories equals one pound, and a net deficit of roughly 500 calories a day will help you to lose 1 pound a week (whether that's calories burned or calories cut from diet).

However, what you eat makes a huge difference in how hungry you are later, which is why it's good to know about nutrition, the glucose index, and how your body processes certain ingredients and additives.

For example, one Hershey's milk chocolate bar is almost 600 calories, but 600 calories of broccoli would probably leave you feeling quite stuffed.

This site might interest you: What does 200 calories look like?
posted by Brittanie at 2:28 AM on September 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

From my personal experience, exposing myself to hunger leads to a kind of "high" (presumably endorphins) which makes eating less actually enjoyable - it no longer feels necessary to keep eating until I feel really full. The times when I've succeeded in losing weight have been when I've reduced my intake enough for this feeling to kick in.

Trying to choose certain foods in order to get the "full feeling" at the same time as maintaining weight loss seems to me to be missing the point a bit, although it might be a good approach for maintenance.
posted by tomcooke at 2:56 AM on September 4, 2007

fyi-- that endorphin response described above is a symptom of starvation. unfortunately, it's not something to aim for.

it's a numbers game, but you can stack the numbers. focusing on calorie-poor foods (low calories, high volume) will allow you to feel full while consuming fewer calories. that means lots of salad, vegetable soups, etc. also, whole grains instead of white, and plenty of protein instead of pasta. finally, avoiding sugary things will help keep you from having that crazy, hungry, low-sugar feeling a few hours after you eat.

one really easy thing to do is to stop drinking sugary sodas, coffees, and juices. honestly, cutting one or two of these drinks out a day alone will help you take off a pound a week without having to do anything else.
posted by thinkingwoman at 4:21 AM on September 4, 2007

Brittanie: Where are you getting your Hershey bars? Mine are only 300 calories...
posted by Andrhia at 6:04 AM on September 4, 2007

Yes and no.

When I lost my weight I could eat anything BUT it mattered that I made sure to get my recommended servings of fruits and veggies. If I ate a lot of refined carbos it made controlling my diet much harder plus my body seemed to turn that into fat quicker.

Also don't even think you can do without exercise. The combo of diet and exercise is what will give you lasting results. You wanna keep your muscle mass, and dieting alone won't do that.
posted by konolia at 6:41 AM on September 4, 2007

Brittanie: Where are you getting your Hershey bars? Mine are only 300 calories...

Korea. The bars we get here are a 100g — a bit larger than the 60g bars in the US. Also, our cans of Coke/Pepsi are 8oz instead of 12oz and our bottles of beer are half a liter. I forgot about the discrepency when I posted the above answer but my hypothetical still stands.
posted by Brittanie at 6:45 AM on September 4, 2007

One bit no one has mentioned yet: that while calories are calories, what you eat also has big impacts on your health. There are other reasons not to eat fast food besides just its high caloric load: the unhealthy fats used in a lot of it worsen cholesterol, and more of it can get deposited in your arteries. It's when one of those cholesterol collections ruptures that BOOM, you have a heart attack or stroke.
posted by gramcracker at 7:01 AM on September 4, 2007

I second Fitday.com as a free web-based calorie/physical journal. Think of it as Quicken for the body. If nothing else it helps you realize that the candy bar you just caved-in to basically canceled out the time and effort you spent at the gym yesterday. Actually keeping track of the numbers game really helps me curb impulses and make better food decisions.
posted by tfmm at 9:29 AM on September 4, 2007

You are an addict.

You are addicted to a certain amount of calories, fat, sugar and salt and if you attempt to cut back on any of things, your body and mind are going to rebel. So your first goal is to recognize that losing weight and keeping it off permanantly is extremely difficult; one statistic I keep seeing is 98% of all diets fail. Cutting back on calories but continuing to eat the same foods is a sure way to set yourself up for failure.

You need to think in terms of a drastic life change and if that scares you, think of it as if you wer planning on going to college and becoming a lawyer: you have to get obssessed, stay obssessed, recognize you will occasionally come short of perfection (you wouldn't drop out of school if you got a "D" on an exam) and keep focused on the goal.

Your first tool in this fight to change yourself is a food journal. Keep track of everything you eat, when you eat, and how you feel. That 100 calories of sugar/fat (half a candybar) at 4:00 will probably leave you craving sugar and more tired at 5:00 than 100 calories of banana. In addition that banana is loaded with potassium which is good for your heart and helps balance out all the salt you eat.

Which leads me to my next point, calories are not the only component in food. The Omega-3 oils in Salmon are essential, the saturated fat in bacon is harmful. You can eat 300 calories of either but they most definitely are not the same. That's why a diet high in fruits, vegetables, nuts, and whole grains does more than just help you lose weight-- it will leave you feeling better and will give your body the tools to fight cancer, lower your blood pressure, and slow the aging process.

How our body uses food is a very complex subject with more information being discovered every day. Make it a point to read as much as you can about the subject. Good luck!
posted by Secret Life of Gravy at 10:13 AM on September 4, 2007

I guess nobody said the thing that someone always says. You dont have to make drastic life changes in order to get back in shape. This kind of "you do nothing right now but in order to see any affect you need to work out 5 days a week and eat nothing but broccoli and wheat germ" is what intimidates food lovers from ever starting.

My advice: next time you crave something you know is not good for you (i.e. a big bowl of ice cream), have something equally yummy but not as bad (i.e. a plum...or two plums...whatever). Make this a habit. Stock up on things that are better for you (maybe not super uber health food)... baby carrots instead of potato chips.

Its not really that difficult, and once you start yourself off in that direction, other ways of becoming healthier become less daunting.
posted by softlord at 7:26 PM on September 4, 2007

What you eat really doesn't matter as far as weight loss goes but...

When you eat sugar, sodas, and snacks you tend to overeat becuase that stuff contains "stuff" that makes you want to eat more or makes you become more addicted.

for example... whne you drink a pepsi - your get a sugar high for about 30 minutes and after that high is over - you'll want to drink anoter soda (more calories) to feel that sugar high again.

Did you doctor give you a permanent weight loss calculator like this one to lose weight and keep it off?

Use that and you'll see how much food you need to eat to lose weight
posted by prom-muh at 1:59 PM on September 8, 2007

Yes, what you eat and numbers too. Look into the "glycemic index" of foods. Ones that have a longer one, won't make you as hungry later.
posted by narebuc at 4:34 PM on September 11, 2007

a little late, but I found an interesting paper on the subject today
http://www.nutritionj.com/content/3/1/9
"A calorie is a calorie" violates the second law of thermodynamics
posted by melissam at 9:10 AM on September 19, 2007